


The place in between Heaven and Hell

by orphan_account



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M, uwu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 23:00:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14436012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: o wah ah ah ah





	The place in between Heaven and Hell

_ I just want to die. _

 

_ Please just let me die. _

 

* * *

 

You awoke in a field of the loveliest yellow flowers, a mix of tulips and buttercups. You look from side to side, before looking down at your feet.

 

_ What is happening?  _ You think, looking around at the luxurious sea of glowing plants.

 

You get onto your feet and stand up, feeling much shorter than normal.

 

_ Where am I? I was just… _ You try and gather your thoughts, but end up failing. All you knew is that wherever you were, it was not in such a beautiful place as here. You take in a deep inhale and lick your lips. It smelled so sweet.

 

Seconds later, you feel something soft touching your shoulder. A warm and gentle hand us a single soothing circle into your body. You turn your head and see him, your best friend, Bertolt. He looks so much younger, as young as the first time you met, which was years and years ago. He smiles at you, and you can’t help but feel a warm tingling rise up from your toes to your head.

 

“You came. I’ve been waiting for you.” He says, wrapping his arms around your body in a deep embrace.

 

“Where are we?” 

 

“I don’t know the name.” 

 

You pause and begin to walk forwards. Bertolt is holding your hand now. He swings it a bit as you walk together, humming to himself and smiling.

 

“How long have you been waiting for me?” You ask him. He licks his lips and stops walking. You let go of his hand and watch him ponder.

 

“It feels like forever, but it must have been only a few years.” 

 

For some reason, at that moment, you put the puzzle pieces together.

 

This was some form of afterlife.

 

You had finally died, and this was the world that you would spend your life in, with your best friend, until, who knows when.

 

“You… died… four years ago.” You tell him. He exhales and looks down at the yellow flowers he crushed.

 

“You’ve been… waiting for me? Why?”

 

“I missed you.” 

 

* * *

 

You walk with him for a little longer, him dragging you to a worn down looking cabin near by a bubbling stream. He takes his shoes off outside of the house, and you follow his lead.

 

He opens the door, and you were startled by what you saw inside.

 

Inside the homey cabin were two of your Warrior cadets, Zophia and Udo, sitting around a table, sipping on tea.

 

“Are they-”

 

You cut yourself off before finishing that statement. They were only kids, just little kids.

 

Walking towards them, you notice something odd about them. Zophia’s creamy white skin was tan, everywhere else but her legs and left arm. Udo had freckles all over his back and legs, and now that you noticed it, Bertolt’s arms and head were tanner.

 

“What’s wrong?” Bertolt asks.

 

You shake your head no and walk back towards the door, pushing it open and leaving.

 

* * *

 

Dipping your toes in the sparkling water, you turn around and see Bertolt exit the house as well, putting his shoes back on and walking towards him.

 

“Hey.” He called out, and you go to face the stream.

 

“Reiner.” 

 

You look at your feet again, letting the water clean your feet.

 

He stands next to you now, taking your hand and lifting it to his face. Bertolt looks like he was about to do something with your interlocked hands, but put them back down and squeezed on them tighter. You turn your head and see him smiling, but also crying. 

 

“... when you are ready, we can come back.” He tells you.

 

“Hm?”

 

“...come back, be reborn again.”

 

He looks at you out of the corner of his eye and smiles, but wider. You lick your lips and look back down at your toes.

 

“That’s why I was waiting for you. So I could come back with you.” 

 

It was a sweet little confession. Bertolt let go of your hand and began to take off his shoes. He puts his feet in the water and looks at the slow stream wash over his feet.

 

“It’s embarrassing but… I’d like to meet you again and see what happens. I want to…” he begins, but fails to complete his sentence. 

 

“... see what it would be like to get to know you again.”

 

You don’t know how to respond to that. 

 

“I guess that would be… nice…” you reply. He smiles and grabs your hand.

 

“Come on, let’s spend some more time here and then we can leave, alright?” Bertolt suggests, tilting his head a bit. You nod and squeeze his hand.

 

* * *

 

Walking upwards of the stream, you find yourself near a huge mountain. You looked up to find the peak of the mountain, but you could not find it. The water was sourced from wherever the top of the mountain was.

 

Turning around, you find a small plaque with text in a language that you were never taught, but somehow could read.

 

_ Mountain to Heaven. _

 

“It is. I tried to climb up there while I was waiting for you, but I always fell back down near the peak.” Bertl let go of your hand and knelt by the water. He cupped his hands together and scooped up some water, taking a sip before offering some to you. You gladly accepted it and sipped up the pure, clean water.

 

It tasted great, like pure nothingness, yet everything at the same time. Bertolt smiled and watched as you squatted by the water and did the same as him. Cupping your hand together and sipping on the water like you had been in the desert for years.

 

“Come walk down with me, and I’ll show you where the water ends.”

 

* * *

 

It took a good five minutes for you both to reach the end of the stream. 

 

The water had turned deep red, and was running down a large hole where you could see… void.

 

Nothingness. Absolutely nothing.

 

You look around and find another plaque, where you read from the same language as the last one.

 

_ Personal Hell. _

 

It wrote.

 

“If you stare into the void here for long, you’ll be able to see your own personal Hell.” Bertolt said.

 

You began to stare into the void, for a good minute, but saw nothing. And then you blinked, and you saw it.

 

It was horrifying, the death, the despair, the screaming and the utter pain of the one you loved being tortured to death. But at the same time, you could not look away. You had to watch as you watched Bertolt die on repeat, over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and-

 

“HEY!” 

 

You were pulled backwards from the void. Bertolt meaninglessly looked in the hole to try and see what you saw, but he obviously did not see anything. He then looked at you, who was staring into his deep green eyes.

 

“Y-you shouldn’t look in there for too long.” 

 

“Yeah. I can see why.”

 

He held you close to his chest and you closed your eyes, looking back into the void for a second and seeing the horrible way that Bertolt died. It played on loop in your head, and you couldn’t stop it.

 

That was, until, he gave you a small peck on the cheek and rubbed your back. 

 

“It’s gonna be okay. Everything you saw in there wasn’t real.” Bertolt said to you. He nuzzled his face onto your cheek and put his hands on the side of your face, squishing it into a v shape. You removed his hands from your face and put them to his sides and closed your eyes.

 

“No, it’s not okay. I saw you dying over and over again, bertl. They killed you in so many different ways, they crushed your head in and they-”

 

“It’s okay, I’m fine now.”

 

“How did they kill you?”

 

Bertolt stopped responding. You asked him too much. Way too much.

He was vibrating softly and looked at his arms and legs, then back to you. Closing his eyes, he covered his face with his hands and made a soft noise.

 

“I’m sorry…” You said to him, grabbing his hands and moving them.

 

Half of his face was destroyed. It was crushed in, worse than with Marco. You could see his shattered skull fragments sticking out of his brain. Small insects sat in his open wounds and began to eat the flesh of his head. You couldn’t just slap the bugs off, that would hurt the one who was already on death’s doorstep even more.

 

“Bertolt…” 

 

You look down at him and see that his arms and legs are gone, like someone sharpley cut them off with a sword and closed his wounds. Bertolt groaned in your arms and fell forwards, spilling blood and other parts of his head onto your body.

 

“I’ll get some help, just wait.”

 

* * *

 

You run back to the little cabin surrounded by flowers and opened the door, screaming and looking for the two warrior cadets, but soon realizing that they would be of no help as well.

There was nothing left of Zophia but her legs and left arm. Udo was in a bloody pile on the floor.

You screamed and ran out of the house, in utter confusion and despair.

 

You run up the stream until you reach the mountain, pushing Bertolt’s head under the water, hoping that somehow, he would be healed by the water. It didn’t do anything but stain the water red.

 

You held Bertolt close to you, putting what was left of his chin on your shoulder. You listened to him groan, and you rub a circle in his back.

 

“It’ll be okay. I’m here with you.” You tell him. 

 

Bertolt makes a deep noise in the back of (what’s left) of his throat. You had no idea how he was still alive, let alone consciously making noises. Gently, you waved your hand over his exposed flesh and attempted to swat away all of the mosquitoes and flies that were devouring him whole.

 

“I’m so sorry.” You say to him. He only whines in response, wrapping his hand around your waist. You look at his face again to see how horrible of a condition he was in, but, he was back to normal.

 

“Why are you crying?” You ask him, but it doesn’t take you long to realize what is making him so upset.

 

A dark, black hand was gripping at your ankles, pushing your foot under the flower-filled soil.

 

“They’re taking you back.” He said, sobbing uncontrollably. You grip the hand around your foot and try to push it off, but it only justs multiplies, and grabs your wrist. 

 

“I don’t wanna go.” You say to him, and he tries to wipe the pitch black hand off of your body, but his hand goes right through it.

 

“No… no no no…” 

 

Bertolt grabs onto your hand and watches as you sink deeper into the dirt. You could feel the cold reality of the real world hit you in waves, over and over and over and…

 

“Please, don’t go…” He begged, grabbing onto your hand even tighter. Your torso was completely under the dirt. You could now hear someone calling your name, it was getting louder and louder. It wasn’t Bertolt, but you couldn’t recognize who it was calling your name.

 

You look back to Bertolt, then back to your body, which was being dragged, your neck and arm being the only thing out of the ground. Bertolt was holding you as tightly as possible.

 

But then, just at the time you needed him the most, his hand slipped. 

 

You watched as you fell into the dirt, trying to open your mouth to scream out, to let out anything. You try to extend an arm, but your hand was shredded into pieces in the soil. Covering your ears with your single hand, you curled up into a ball as you heard them scream out your name. It was hellish, every hard ‘r’ of your name sounded like nails on a chalkboard. You uncover your ear and extend all of your limbs out, but they are also torn up by the rocks that were lodged into the dirt. You looked down and you saw yourself, your body, encased in hard rock.

 

And then, you were back. Back to hell, back to real life. 

 

They were still screaming. Your head was aching and your limbs were back. 

  
_ Please. Just let me die.  _ You thought to yourself.


End file.
